Your View: Polluter blockade of New Bedford wind jobs finally falling

Sunday

Apr 14, 2013 at 12:01 AM

It's been 12 years since Cape Wind was first proposed, yet today not a single offshore wind turbine is harvesting energy off America's Atlantic Coast. While construction on the South Terminal and ultimately Cape Wind itself are finally set to begin, the delay has been costly for the SouthCoast region — jobs deferred, energy instability increased and our air that much more polluted.

Miles Grant

It's been 12 years since Cape Wind was first proposed, yet today not a single offshore wind turbine is harvesting energy off America's Atlantic Coast. While construction on the South Terminal and ultimately Cape Wind itself are finally set to begin, the delay has been costly for the SouthCoast region — jobs deferred, energy instability increased and our air that much more polluted.

Just how many jobs are we missing out on? Cape Wind is projected to employ 600 to 1,000 people during its construction and manufacturing phases. New Bedford's South Terminal will create about 200 jobs. Cape Wind will also employ 50 people at its operations and maintenance facility in Falmouth. With the unemployment rate in the New Bedford area still around 10 percent, the economic impact of those delayed jobs is huge.

What makes this damaging delay so outrageous is that it's no accident — a coalition of big polluters and big-money landowners on the Cape have conspired to fund the "Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound," a front group that's spent millions to keep Cape Wind tied up in red tape. On Tuesday, the Alliance is set to hit an outrageous new low: At exactly the same time as Gov. Deval Patrick and Mayor Jon Mitchell are finally breaking ground on the South Terminal here in New Bedford, the Alliance's head will be in Washington urging Congress to kill incentives for offshore wind energy.

Of all the oil, mining and coal barons who've funded the Alliance, William Koch stands head and shoulders above the rest. To put it in perspective: Along with his brothers, Charles and David, William was born into Koch Industries, one of America's largest polluters. William now runs Oxbow Carbon and, with a net worth of $4 billion, comes in at No. 92 on the Forbes 400. Koch recently spent $26.5 million to secure two mansions and 1,000 feet of private beach on Cape Cod in Osterville. But he claims residence in Palm Beach, Fla., in a state with no income tax.

Koch finally broke years of silence on his Alliance funding last November, and his top reason for fighting Cape Wind was revelatory. "It's visual pollution," Koch told Patrick Cassidy of the Cape Cod Times. "For some reason in Massachusetts that doesn't count for much."

That Cape Wind would barely be visible from shore is beside the point: William Koch can't understand why we'd prioritize jobs, energy security and clean air over the view from his private estate. Either to protect his precious view from changing a little or because he's wed to dirty energy and resents a new clean energy industry, or both, billionaire Koch and his rich McMansion-owning friends in Oyster Harbors and other precious gilded waterfront neighborhoods are delaying the jobs and economic revitalization for places like New Bedford by holding back the emergence of the U.S. offshore wind industry, it's selfish and shameful.

I don't doubt the Alliance has some genuine supporters. But when the Cape Cod Times reported last August that the town of Barnstable's legal attack on Cape Wind is being bankrolled by a special gift account valued at $355,000 funded by the Alliance, it's hard to tell what's being done in the public interest and what's being done to appease a single dirty energy billionaire.

But job creation is only one party of the story. Moving forward with clean energy like offshore wind is essential to cutting the carbon pollution that's already changing our climate. Rising sea levels and warmer water are transforming seemingly every winter storm into a coastal evacuation-inducing emergency. Higher temperatures are changing nice summer days into scorchers and turning cherished winter traditions like pond hockey into distant memories.

Offshore wind energy can and must be developed in a wildlife-friendly manner. Not only do scientific studies show that properly locating turbines and requiring best management practices can minimize impacts on birds, bats, sea turtles and marine mammals, but transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy benefits all wildlife with cleaner air and water and reduction of the carbon pollution that causes climate change.

The coastal waters off Massachusetts have some of the best offshore wind energy resources in the world, the technology to harvest it is ready right now and we have workers ready to do the job. Fortunately, New Bedford finally stands ready to take advantage of this golden opportunity to make our electricity supply cleaner, more wildlife-friendly, and more secure.

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